


this, and that was then

by monsooned (leovenus)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: EdelbertTrickOrTreat, F/M, Fluff, In This House We Communicate, Mild Hurt/Comfort, infirmary talks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27301762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leovenus/pseuds/monsooned
Summary: It makes her feel exposed, but then - but then it is the person who covers your blind spots who knows what they are, after all.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22
Collections: Edelbert Trick-or-Treat 2020





	this, and that was then

**Author's Note:**

> Dear aapplebluee,
> 
> I had planned something much longer, but life very unfortunately got in the way T__T I hope you enjoy the hurt!Hubert / the two of them coming to an agreement as equals regarding their mutual feelings nonetheless!! As this is set in the academy phase, I wanted to pick through how they shift from "we're totally comfortable with each other on a personal level" to "I failed by compromising you / No you didn't" to "I'll try, for you"... I truly hope this is to your liking.
> 
> Happy Halloween! :-)

In all her greatest plans and machinations, Edelgard sometimes forgets that a battlefield spares you very little time to _think_. The thought occurs to her as she faces off a Western Church mage, a hulking man twice her size with a Bolganone crackling between his fingers, making the ends of her hair curl from a distance.

As she circles him, axe raised, she does not miss when his eyes light with recognition under his hood.

"The Imperial princess," he purrs. “My day just got a whole lot better.”

She narrows her eyes, pausing to evaluate him more thoroughly. His speech is refined, the spell well controlled as it licks between his fingers. It sets him apart from the rest of his counterparts, signals _danger_.

“No biting words for me?” He taunts, bringing his hands apart and letting the flames lick an arc in front of him. The light picks out the points of his face, eerie; Edelgard keeps her mouth drawn tight as she watches. “Shame, I heard you were feisty.”

She feels the change in the air before she sees the fire move. The currents shift, static buzzing in a line on her left. Edelgard lunges right, stance low, bringing her axe forward in a strike towards his side. She knows she’s won - beaten the fire, which will falter as soon as does the caster - when there is a shout that sounds indisputably like her name.

Her body follows through on the swing even as she looks back instinctively - later, she will think, _what a foolish and dangerous thing to have done._ But in the moment Edelgard knows that voice, and looks to see -

A flash of black, a dense cloud of Miasma that reaches around her to sink into the wound she’s left on her opponent. Edelgard regains her senses enough to turn her attention back to him, cutting briskly through his chest to ensure he stays dead.

She tugs her axe out, grimacing at the gore she will have to clean off later, and swivels around. “Hubert. How many times must I tell you you cannot simply put yourself in harm’s way for -“

Hubert is hunched awkwardly in a crouch, half turned towards her. He shakes, as if trying to bring himself to stand at attention; next to him is a hooded body, unmoving. She starts, the admonishment shriveling in her throat, and sets a hand on his shoulder to stay him, going herself into a kneel.

He is completely white, far exceeding his usual pallor. A frown mars the line of his brow. Edelgard blanches, scanning him for an injury she cannot see until he shifts, revealing a festering line on the inner arm, bubbling with something malicious.

_A poison?_

“Hubert.” She tears her gaze away to look at him grimly. “Can you stand?”

He opens his mouth, and only lets out a gasping, pained sound.

Gently setting the infected arm down, she manoeuvres herself into a position to bear the bulk of his weight on the other side, scanning the terrain for the distinctive sheen of the professor’s hair. Hubert tries to speak again, with more force this time, and is rewarded only with a dry rasping cough that shakes them both for his troubles.

It digs into her chest, settling claws into the soft meat of her lungs and curling there to stay. “Don’t,” she murmurs softly as she starts walking them both over. “Let me help you, for once.”

\---

On the evening of the second day after the mission, Edelgard looks up from an essay on the impact of the terrain of northern Adrestria on the outcomes of its battles to see Dorothea approaching her, looking slightly put out despite the purposeful set to her walk.

“Dorothea,” she greets, setting her quill down and straightening her back to meet her. “What brings you to this corner of the library?”

“Don’t sound so surprised that I might study,” Dorothea lilts, then lifts a hand to cover her mouth the moment Edelgard feels her own horror show. “I’m joking, Edie. No, I actually came because Lin didn’t wanna walk all the way here himself from the infirmary.”

Edelgard sits up straighter. "Is he -"

Dorothea nods. "Hubie's awake."

Her first instinct is to _go_ , but she wrangles it into submission. She packs her things calmly under Dorothea’s watchful eye. As she tucks in her chair, her friend sucks in a breath like she’s about to say something - and then holds it, as if considering.

“Dorothea?” Edelgard prompts.

The look on her delicate features is hesitant. “It’ll be okay,” she says, eventually, mouth twisting like that wasn’t quite what she’d intended to go with.

“Linhardt is a proficient healer when he wants to be, especially under Professor Manuela’s guidance,” Edelgard responds, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “I don’t doubt that.”

Dorothea’s brows swing high. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean -“ she begins, then claps a hand over her mouth. “No, no, don’t let me keep you any longer. Off you go!” Her tone is bright again, overly so, the actress bleeding into the timbre of her voice.

“Come, come,” Dorothea sings, drawing a few disgruntled looks from adjacent tables. She’s already begun to usher Edelgard towards the exit. “To the infirmary with you. Go, go!”

\---

Linhardt meets her at the door, eyes half lidded and deep green hair mussed on one side. He opens his mouth to greet her - and a massive yawn emerges instead, one he indulges in with great relish. Edelgard watches him, struck by the feeling of having approached one of the monastery cats after a nap in the afternoon sun.

“Oh, it’s you,” he remarks, when he’s completed the yawn. “Great.” He sets a key in her hands. “Lock the medicine cabinets when you’re done. Bye.”

This said he slinks off in the general direction of the dormitories - to sleep, most likely. Edelgard toys with the key in her hands, for some reason feeling somewhat nervous, before eventually gathering the courage to step into the room, where there is a single prone form on a bed nearest the window.

At her approach, the shape shifts, making to sit up. She rushes over to place a stilling hand on his shoulder, pressing him back down. “Please. There’s no need to rise.”

Hubert resists, bracing both hands on the infirmary bed and making as if to try again. Edelgard leans more weight into the touch, feeling a twinge of guilt when a stab of pain lances through his features and he relents, lying back down.

“It is my duty to the Imperial Princess,” he grits out, with a voice rubbed raw with sandpaper and stone. “Please, Lady Edelgard. Let me show you my respect.”

For the first time since his injury she feels that nigh-foreign stab of feeling. Her gloved fingers curl in the fabric of her uniform skirt. "Stop it, Hubert."

Half in shadow the line of his silhouette stiffens. Very carefully, he says, "I don't know what you mean, your Highness."

The tightrope grows taut, and she tips over gracefully sideways into the safety net she knows is waiting. Abruptly, undignified, Edelgard lets out a noise that is most assuredly a snort. "There's nobody here to see." A pause. “Please.”

Even then, he remains mulishly silent, face turned towards the stained glass. Edelgard waits a beat, and then two, and then says, again, “Hubert.”

It comes out a little plaintive. It makes her feel exposed, but then - but then it is the person who covers your blind spots who knows what they are, after all. Eventually, when the silence has settled around them like a cape, he says, “I put you in danger.”

Edelgard purses her lips. "You _saved_ me," she argues. "I didn't see that other mage coming. And before you say it, Hubert, you're under no obligation to endanger your own life just to save me from a minor inconvenience."

"That dose of poison would've likely incapacitated you indefinitely," Hubert snipes back, drily. The point makes itself; she hadn't thought about it that way. And it soothes some of her unrest, to have him speaking honestly with her.

"Okay, so not minor," she mutters. "But even if I'm the Princess - you're instrumental to the Empire too. Perhaps moreso than I am. So you shouldn't -"

"I wanted to."

There is the rustle of sheets, Hubert turning to face her. In the gloom his eyes are pinpricks of peridot green, eerie-bright. It is said so quietly, so quickly that she begins to wonder if she'd imagined it - almost thinks she has, except the faintest quiver in the line of his lower lip tells her otherwise.

"You -" she blurts. "Did you even consider for a moment what _I_ want?"

Hubert's expression - usually so carefully schooled into a sombre mask - shifts. Edelgard continues. "I know what you'll say, Hubert. That you're not doing this out of obligation to the Empire, or even my lineage. That - you think at some point you have sworn to be my personal vassal, and at any cost to yourself."

"But that's not what I want from you," she says. She doesn't cry, and hasn't since her previous self, but Hubert has known her then and now, both of them. She thinks she would, if she could. "I don't want - I wouldn't know what to do if you left me alone."

There is a moment of silence where she fears she has said too much. Edelgard keeps her gaze fixed on the starched white of the blanket, regret threatening to overwhelm her until there is a hand falling on hers. She raises her head, hesitantly, to meet Hubert's gaze.

"Lady Edelgard," is all he says for a while, but it is tinged with something more than the devotion he wears on his sleeve, further even than the ease with which he speaks with her when they are alone. "Thank you."

"But there is one thing you have wrong," he continues, a rare hint of humour bleeding into his tone.

His hand is warm even through the layers of cloth. Cautiously she turns hers around, linking their fingers, and raises an eyebrow in question.

"It is - not as your vassal that I acted," Hubert says. Very slowly, he adds, "And because of that I cannot promise I will not do it again."

Unbidden, a breath sticks in her chest. "Even if I order you to?" she asks, half in jest, her heart dangling on a thread.

He snorts, so unexpectedly that it startles a giggle out of her, nervous on the edges. "Especially not, my lady."

The almost-confession settles around her shoulders, like awakening at her desk in the morning to find someone has shut the window and placed a blanket around her in the early hours of the day. But -

"That won't do," she says softly. "Not unless you promise to let me do the same for you."

"Absolutely not, Lady Edelgard," he protests, and this time when he makes to sit up she does not stop him. "You know I would never allow -"

She grins, teasing. "Then promise me you'll try," she barters. "Don't - I hate seeing you like this." The words spill out embarrassingly honestly. She soldiers on. "Promise me you'll work with me, instead. I don't want to be the only one relying on you."

Hubert takes their linked hands, lifting them and pressing a kiss to the sliver of bare skin at the join of her hand and forearm. "Also," she adds, flustered in a way she is not at all accustomed to, "I've had to get my own dinner for the past two days and it's - it's frankly appalling. You simply cannot sustain grievous injuries and skip out on your duties like that, Hubert. Most - most unbecoming."

When she chances a look at him the unabashed fondness she sees hits her with longing. She leans in, towards him, and he catches her as her head falls into the groove of his neck, arms wrapping around his waist. Carefully, a hand comes to rest on her head.

“A terrible situation we must remedy at once,” he murmurs, voice gravelly in his ribcage. She snorts, burying her face deeper into his collar, heedless of the starchy gown. She is aware of the sensation of a gentle press to the crown of her head, and then, quietly against her hair: “I promise.”

It is a start, she thinks. Edelgard lifts her head, watching the dim light play over the fine lines of his face, and smiles.


End file.
